Kindred and Wings (37 page)

The Ahouri darted past her, as if she were a wagon and they more nimble riders. Equo and his brothers could not use dragon fire, especially with the song being their more powerful weapon. They sang of the frailness of flesh as they flew along her flanks, peppering her rough hide with melody as they went. It would have turned any other creature to a mass of ill-defined flesh, but this creature was made of sterner stuff.

The granite dragon turned and snapped at them, as her rider called out something to her. Equo banked left as they reached the end of her lashing tail. Varlesh, just fractionally behind him, had to twist to avoid being skewered by it.

If only they knew the Name of this beast, he thought frantically, they could make a Song for it. Creating such a piece while in flight and in peril would not be an easy thing, but it would at least give them a hope.

Varlesh and Si separated from him, turning around and flying back on either side of the dragon, acting like midges on a dog. She snapped and lunged at them, but they flipped and dodged so much that the dragon could not bring her fire to bear properly. They sang as they went; even if it made no difference, it was their way.

Equo took the chance that his brothers and the rest of the Ahouri were giving him. He turned hard, high above the dragon, and drove down not at the dragon, but at her rider. The Ahouri plummeted down upon her, and wrapped teeth and claw about her.

Like the woman below, this dire child seemed to have nascent Kindred trapped in a ring around her shoulders. It made him feel better about menacing someone who was apparently so young. She screamed, and the Kindred bit and struck at his wings and talons.

“Barmethesis, help me!” she howled as Equo snapped at her face. It was all he had wanted. He let go of her and dropped off the back of the dragon with a shriek of triumph.

As he circled the beast, trying to find sounds and tunes that would do what he required, he took a quick note of Nyree. She was struggling with the woman on the edge of the volcano, hair was flying around both women from the heat—and there was something else happening behind her. Figures appearing from nowhere. Maybe they were Kindred, maybe not.

Equo couldn’t stop to see. The dragons were all lashing out around him, and the Ahouri were dying. He had to think quickly. Finally the song came to him. With Si and Varlesh following in his wake and picking up the tune, he turned and spun, singing. He’d woven the name Barmethesis into it, and the difference was immediately obvious.

The rocky gray skin rippled as he flew past howling the tune, and the dragon screamed in response. Now she was forgetting about the bothersome Ahouri and concentrating all of her attention on the one that was paining her.

Rider and dragon began to chase the brothers. Her wing beats and her hot breath were on them. Yet the song was not bringing down the dragon; it was hurting her, but she flew on. Barmethesis’ flame passed close to them, narrowly missing Si, and Equo realized abruptly what had to be done.

He had no way of telling his brothers, but he deliberately slowed his wing beats, dropping back from them. The idea was a perfect crystal in his head. The moment was a long one.

Then Equo turned, spun and fell toward the creature’s mouth. By some stroke of luck he had timed it perfectly, landing near the dragon’s jaws but not in them. Her foul breath raked over him, but her teeth did not reach him. He only a moment to get this mad venture right.

Raising himself up, Equo sang directly into the mouth of the dragon. She snapped desperately, but the call of flesh went past that thick, rocky hide and into the softest part of the Named’s flesh and brain.

You cannot fly, Barmethesis,
the Song whispered seductively.
You are Kindred, of the earth and that is all you are.

Barmethesis did not scream. Her wings slowed a fraction. She listened—then she began to fall.

Equo felt the whistle of the air around him, but he couldn’t push free of her. Her fall was his fall. They were locked together as he had known they would be.

The dragon hit the ground near the rim of the volcano. Equo felt an explosion of pain, and knew his form and all his forms would not walk or fly from this. He caught a glimpse of Si and Varlesh turning and dropping toward him. It was good to see them, to know that they were safe.

He was grateful also that he could see Nyree from here. Though he wished he could sing one more song, he dimly heard the Ahouri flying above, continuing on. The melody and words were so beautiful that it was all worth it. Nyree probably knew he loved her, and that would have to do.

The Swoop flew through the gap in the White Void, chilly avian breaths suddenly escaping into a far warmer climate, and erupted in a flurry of feathers and calls above a steaming and angry volcano.

Finn, Wahirangi, Syris, Ysel, and Talyn walked through behind them, but also felt the sudden wave of warmth like a blow. The nykur tossed his head, and lowered it like a bull ready for a fight. It appeared he was likely to get one.

A volcano. The Belly of the World was a volcano. Finn might have guessed that. Looking up, he stumbled on the unstable rocks, and it was Talyn who helped him up. They both watched the Swoop circle back down the flank of the volcano, and already they had plenty of enemies. A mass of Named were racing up the slopes on feet and hooves, while shapes were moving in the clouds above.

Talyn called out, but far too late; Syris was already racing down the slope to join the fray. Anywhere that blood was flowing was where his nature would take him. Chaos would meet chaos. The nykur, who was supposed to be a silent creature, let out a noise like a screaming hawk. It was an eerie battle cry.

“Sister,” Wahirangi spoke, and all of them jerked around, alerted to something far closer but a lot less dangerous. The shape of a felled dragon lay half buried in the earth. Ysel crowded closer to his brother, a strangely childish gesture from a boy who claimed so many powers. Finn recognized the dragon immediately—it was the same creature that had attacked them on the way to Elraban.

While that knowledge burned its way into his brain, a small figure was climbing down from atop it. Such a crash should have shaken anyone, but there was a disconcerting sureness about the child’s steps. The talespinner felt his jaw clench the closer it got. He hadn’t forgotten anything of their last encounter with this thing.

“There’s Nyree,” Talyn called, pulling his attention away from the oncoming child for just a moment.

A woman, her skin alive with the
pae atuae
, was struggling with another who appeared to have Kindred attached to her neck and shoulders. Finn did not need to be told which one was not on their side.

“And that is Circe,” Talyn went on, unsheathing her sword, and unholstering her pistol. “She and I are due a reckoning. I will deal with her. Can you take care of that thing?” Her mouth twisted as she pointed at the black-eyed child.

Two Phage, and she was giving him and his brother the smaller one—pretty generous, Finn thought.

“Go,” he said as calmly as this situation would allow. “Get Nyree!”

It spoke of her confidence in them that Talyn was instantly running as directed. He did not want that to be misplaced. As the child drew slowly nearer, he tried to judge how this could possibly go. Ysel remained silent, but his fists were clenched as if he wanted to punch the girl desperately.

Screams above caught their attention. The predatory birds of the Swoop were engaged in battling what looked like two kinds of dragons; some small, some large. Flames were lighting up the clouds, and reptilian screams were filling the air.

“Those are not Phage,” Ysel said, matter-of-factly.

Wahirangi’s head dipped toward the brothers. “The Swoop are confused. It is as Ysel says; the small ones are not Phage, but Ahouri. I must get everyone fighting their shared enemies, not each other.” His opal eyes raked over the black-eyed girl child, but Finn knew what held him back from killing her with fire; the Pact still bound the Kindred from killing Vaerli. The Phage had taken full advantage of that fact.

“Quickly, then,” Finn urged, seeing that many of their friends were in danger. The Ahouri might mean that his friends Varlesh, Equo, and Si were up there. “Help them!”

Gathering his legs beneath him, the golden dragon surged into the sky, blue flames jetting from his mouth. Finn didn’t see any way that the beast could now avoid killing his own kin. It was the nature of battle that blood was set against blood.

All that he and Ysel were left with was a child. She didn’t stand much taller than Finn’s brother, but she had even less of the child about her.

Her solid black eyes were even more disconcerting as she drew nearer. Finn noted that from under her dress lone dark lines were drawn upon her skin—they looked awfully like
pae atuae
.

One glance to his left told him that whatever Talyn was doing had now moved out of sight behind the bulk of the dead dragon. As Finn watched the child moving toward them slowly and deliberately, he began to wonder if a dragon might not be the lesser of two great evils.

“Half-Vaerli,” she said, cocking her head and smiling slightly at the brothers. “You two are the things left behind by Putorae. The anchors needed.” Her laugh was cold. “You are so broken and so unprepared.”

It was obvious she was trying to rattle them, but Finn was too busy examining what sort of threat she was. Plenty of stories told of terrifying children, eldritch and dangerous, but that was usually on lonely roads and in misty swamps. This creature, though she was terrifying looking, did not even have a blade. He was not stupid enough to point that out.

Just as he was thinking that, her head turned toward Ysel. “Despite what you look like, you actually have the better training.” Her grin spread wider. “So you will know of the Phage, and how the Gifts the Vaerli possessed are still ours, just twisted. The Gift of flesh, for example.”

She didn’t make a move, but suddenly Ysel let out a howl that sounded as though he had been stabbed. His eyes bulged, and as Finn watched in horror, bruises began to appear all over his body as if he were being crushed by some unseen force. He put out his hand to comfort him, but there was little he could do.

“And time,” the girl went on, the twisted
pae atuae
shimmering on her skin. “You should feel the weight of time, as well.”

Wahirangi screamed above, and for a moment Finn hoped that help might come from that quarter, but Named creatures were now engaging the Swoop and his dragon.

It is just one little girl, Finn reminded himself, and she was hurting his newly found brother. He would have to stop her himself.

Until she turned her attention to him. Those black eyes bored into him. Suddenly, every bone creaked and groaned in pain. He felt the weight of the world focusing on him through those completely black orbs of hers. Suddenly movement was not an option.

As he fell to his knees, he caught a glimpse of Ysel in the same position.

“So much for Putorae’s sons,” the girl said, standing over them, a disparaging look on her young face. “Weak like their mother, and unfinished like their father.”

The memory of the Last Seer fading before his eyes somehow reached Finn, and gave him enough energy to reach out with his hands. It was a small gesture, but it was enough to make contact.

In that moment before she shook him off, he reached for that Gift that was not from the Vaerli. It was from his father, something that he had always thought of more as a curse than a blessing. It had saved him many times, and this time was to prove no different.

All those times that he had been shunned, laughed out of town, mocked by his classmates for being an orphan rushed back to the talespinner. Every moment where he had been overlooked, and gone hungry because no one cared about him filled his mind.

You are small. Insignificant. Nothing.
His gift said, but this time it was not saying it to him, it was saying it to the Phage child. It was burying that message inside her, pushing aside the one that said she was special.

It would have been a terrible thing to do to a child, but this was no child. Finn had to remind himself of that. She had been made to be the seer, a creature of darkness, birthed by twisted beings that did not deserve the name of Vaerli.

While he concentrated, the Phage staggered back, losing her grip on Ysel. The boy was quick-witted; he darted forward, pulled his knife free of its sheath, and struck with all of his might. He did not aim for the black-eyed girl herself, but instead at the circle of Kindred struggling around her shoulders.

He pulled them away from her body and with remarkable precision cut them free. The girl screamed, as if he had cut her instead. Ysel threw the Kindred away behind him. They landed like patches of magma, yet far brighter and more vengeful. As Finn watched from where he was sprawled on the ground, they grew from small patches to fully sized Kindred. They once more were like their kin, without expression or limbs; simply looming rocky beings. Except they rounded on the girl with something that was easily identifiable as vengeance.